Processes

Process Concept [1/2]

An operating system executes a variety of programs:
◦ Batch system – jobs
◦ Time-shared systems – user programs or tasks

Process – a program in execution; process execution

must progress in sequential fashion
A process includes:
◦ program counter
◦ stack
◦ data section
The Process [2/2]
Multiple parts
❖ The program code, also called text section
❖ Current activity including program counter, processor registers
❖ Stack containing temporary data
❖ Function parameters, return addresses, local variables
❖ Data section containing global variables
❖ Heap containing memory dynamically allocated during run time
Program is passive entity, process is active
❖ Program becomes process when executable file loaded into memory
Execution of program started via GUI mouse clicks, cmd line etc
Process in Memory
 Process State
As a process executes, it changes state

❖ new: The process is being created

❖ running: Instructions are being executed

❖ waiting: The process is waiting for some event to occur

❖ ready: The process is waiting to be assigned to a processor

❖ terminated: The process has finished execution

Diagram of Process State
 Process Control Block (PCB)
Information associated with each process
(also called task control block)

Process state – running, waiting, etc

Program counter – location of instruction to next

execute

CPU registers – contents of all process-centric registers

CPU scheduling information- priorities, scheduling

queue pointers

Memory-management information – memory allocated

to the process

Accounting information – CPU used, clock time

elapsed since start, time limits

I/O status information – I/O devices allocated to

process, list of open files
Process Scheduling

Maximize CPU use, quickly switch processes onto CPU for time sharing

Process scheduler selects among available processes for next execution on

CPU

Maintains scheduling queues of processes:

❖ Job queue – set of all processes in the system

❖ Ready queue – set of all processes residing in main memory, ready and
waiting to execute

❖ Device queues – set of processes waiting for an I/O device

Ready Queue And Various I/O Device Queues
Representation of Process Scheduling
Schedulers
Long-term scheduler (or job scheduler) – selects which
processes should be brought into the ready queue

Short-term scheduler (or CPU scheduler) – selects

which process should be executed next and allocates CPU
◦ Sometimes the only scheduler in a system
Schedulers (Cont.)
Short-term scheduler is invoked very frequently (milliseconds)
⇒ (must be fast)
Long-term scheduler is invoked very infrequently (seconds,
minutes) ⇒ (may be slow)
The long-term scheduler controls the degree of
multiprogramming
Processes can be described as either:
◦ I/O-bound process – spends more time doing I/O than
computations, many short CPU bursts
◦ CPU-bound process – spends more time doing
computations; few very long CPU bursts
Addition of Medium Term Scheduling
● Medium-term scheduler can be added if degree of multiple programming needs to decrease
● Remove process from memory, store on disk, bring back in from disk to continue execution:
swapping
Multitasking in Mobile Systems
Some mobile systems (e.g., early version of iOS) allow
only one process to run, others suspended
Due to screen real estate, user interface limits iOS
provides for a
◦ Single foreground process- controlled via user interface
◦ Multiple background processes– in memory, running, but not
on the display, and with limits
◦ Limits include single, short task, receiving notification of
events, specific long-running tasks like audio playback
Context Switch
When CPU switches to another process, the system must save the state
of the old process and load the saved state for the new process via a
context switch.

Context of a process represented in the PCB

Context-switch time is overhead; the system does no useful work while

switching
CPU Switch From Process to Process (Context
Switching)
Process Creation
Parent process create children processes, which, in turn create other
processes, forming a tree of processes
Generally, process identified and managed via a process identifier (pid)
Resource sharing Options
◦ Parent and children share all resources
◦ Children share subset of parent’s resource
◦ Parent and child share no resources
Execution Options
◦ Parent and children execute concurrently
◦ Parent waits until children terminate
 Process Creation (Cont.)

Address space
◦ Child duplicate of parent
◦ Child has a program loaded into it
UNIX examples
◦ fork system call creates new process
◦ exec system call used after a fork to replace the process’
memory space with a new program
Process Creation
C Program Forking Separate Process
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <studio.h>
#include <unistd.h>
int main()
{
pid_t pid;
/* fork another process */
pid = fork();
if (pid < 0) { /* error occurred */
fprintf(stderr, "Fork Failed");
return 1;
}
else if (pid == 0) { /* child process */
execlp("/bin/ls", "ls", NULL);
}
else { /* parent process */
/* parent will wait for the child */
wait (NULL);
printf ("Child Complete");
}
return 0;
}
A Tree of Processes on Solaris
Process Termination
Process executes last statement and asks the operating system to delete it
(exit)
◦ Output data from child to parent (via wait)
◦ Process’ resources are deallocated by operating system
Parent may terminate execution of children processes (abort)
◦ Child has exceeded allocated resources
◦ Task assigned to child is no longer required
◦ If parent is exiting
● Some operating system do not allow child to continue if its parent
terminates
● All children terminated - cascading termination
Interprocess Communication
Processes within a system may be independent or cooperating
Cooperating process can affect or be affected by other processes, including
sharing data
Reasons for cooperating processes:
◦ Information sharing
◦ Computation speedup
◦ Modularity
◦ Convenience
Cooperating processes need interprocess communication (IPC)
Two models of IPC
◦ Shared memory
◦ Message passing
Communications Models
Cooperating Processes
Independent process cannot affect or be affected by the execution of
another process
Cooperating process can affect or be affected by the execution of
another process
Advantages of process cooperation
◦ Information sharing
◦ Computation speed-up
◦ Modularity
◦ Convenience
Producer-Consumer Problem

Paradigm for cooperating processes, producer

process produces information that is
consumed by a consumer process
◦ unbounded-buffer places no practical limit on the
size of the buffer
◦ bounded-buffer assumes that there is a fixed buffer
size
Bounded-Buffer –
Shared-Memory Solution

Shared data
#define BUFFER_SIZE 10
typedef struct {
...
} item;
item buffer[BUFFER_SIZE];
int in = 0;
int out = 0;
Bounded-Buffer – Producer

while (true) {
/* Produce an item */
while (((in = (in + 1) % BUFFER SIZE count) == out)
; /* do nothing -- no free buffers */
buffer[in] = item;
in = (in + 1) % BUFFER SIZE;
}
Bounded Buffer – Consumer
while (true) {
while (in == out)
; // do nothing -- nothing to consume

// remove an item from the buffer

item = buffer[out];
out = (out + 1) % BUFFER SIZE;
return item;
}
Interprocess Communication – Message Passing

Mechanism for processes to communicate and to

synchronize their actions

IPC facility provides two operations:

◦ send(message) – message size fixed or variable
◦ receive(message)

If P and Q wish to communicate, they need to:

◦ establish a communication link between them
◦ exchange messages via send/receive

Implementation of communication link

◦ physical (e.g., shared memory, hardware bus)
◦ logical (e.g., logical properties)
Implementation Questions
How are links established?
Can a link be associated with more than two
processes?
How many links can there be between every pair of
communicating processes?
What is the capacity of a link?
Is the size of a message that the link can
accommodate fixed or variable?
Is a link unidirectional or bi-directional?
Direct Communication
Processes must name each other explicitly:
◦ send (P, message) – send a message to process P
◦ receive(Q, message) – receive a message from process Q

Properties of communication link

◦ Links are established automatically
◦ A link is associated with exactly one pair of communicating processes
◦ Between each pair there exists exactly one link
◦ The link may be unidirectional, but is usually bi-directional
Indirect Communication
Messages are directed and received from mailboxes (also referred to as
ports)
◦ Each mailbox has a unique id
◦ Processes can communicate only if they share a mailbox

Properties of communication link

◦ Link established only if processes share a common mailbox
◦ A link may be associated with many processes
◦ Each pair of processes may share several communication links
◦ Link may be unidirectional or bi-directional
Indirect Communication
Operations
◦ create a new mailbox
◦ send and receive messages through mailbox
◦ destroy a mailbox

Primitives are defined as:

send(A, message) – send a message to mailbox A
receive(A, message) – receive a message from mailbox A
Indirect Communication
Mailbox sharing
◦ P1, P2, and P3 share mailbox A
◦ P1, sends; P2 and P3 receive
◦ Who gets the message?

Solutions
◦ Allow a link to be associated with at most two processes
◦ Allow only one process at a time to execute a receive operation
◦ Allow the system to select arbitrarily the receiver. Sender is
notified who the receiver was.
Synchronization
Message passing may be either blocking or non-blocking

Blocking is considered synchronous

◦ Blocking send has the sender block until the message is received
◦ Blocking receive has the receiver block until a message is available

Non-blocking is considered asynchronous

◦ Non-blocking send has the sender send the message and continue
◦ Non-blocking receive has the receiver receive a valid message or
null
Buffering
Queue of messages attached to the link;
implemented in one of three ways
1.Zero capacity – 0 messages waiting in a queue.
2.Bounded capacity – finite length of n messages, n messages
waiting in a queue

3.Unbounded capacity – infinite length ,any number of

messages can wait in a queue
Examples of IPC Systems - POSIX
POSIX Shared Memory
◦ Process first creates shared memory segment
segment id = shmget(IPC PRIVATE, size, S
IRUSR | S IWUSR);
◦ Process wanting access to that shared memory must attach to it
shared memory = (char *) shmat(id, NULL, 0);
◦ Now the process could write to the shared memory
sprintf(shared memory, "Writing to shared
memory");
◦ When done a process can detach the shared memory from its
address space
shmdt(shared memory);
 Examples of IPC Systems - Mach

Mach communication is message based

◦ Even system calls are messages
◦ Each task gets two mailboxes at creation- Kernel and Notify
◦ Only three system calls needed for message transfer
msg_send(), msg_receive(), msg_rpc()
◦ Mailboxes needed for commuication, created via
port_allocate()
Examples of IPC Systems – Windows XP

Message-passing centric via local procedure call (LPC)

facility
◦ Only works between processes on the same system
◦ Uses ports (like mailboxes) to establish and maintain
communication channels
◦ Communication works as follows:
● The client opens a handle to the subsystem’s connection port object.
● The client sends a connection request.
● The server creates two private communication ports and returns the
handle to one of them to the client.
● The client and server use the corresponding port handle to send
messages or callbacks and to listen for replies.
Local Procedure Calls in Windows XP
Communications in Client-Server Systems

Sockets

Remote Procedure Calls

Pipes
Sockets
A socket is defined as an endpoint for
communication

Concatenation of IP address and port

The socket 161.25.19.8:1625 refers to port 1625 on

host 161.25.19.8

Communication consists between a pair of sockets

Socket Communication
Remote Procedure Calls
Remote procedure call (RPC) abstracts procedure calls
between processes on networked systems

Stubs – client-side proxy for the actual procedure on the

server

The client-side stub locates the server and marshalls the

parameters

The server-side stub receives this message, unpacks the

marshalled parameters, and performs the procedure on the
server
Execution of RPC
Pipes
Acts as a conduit allowing two processes to
communicate

Issues
◦ Is communication unidirectional or bidirectional?
◦ In the case of two-way communication, is it half or
full-duplex?
◦ Must there exist a relationship (i.e. parent-child) between
the communicating processes?
◦ Can the pipes be used over a network?
Ordinary Pipes
Ordinary Pipes allow communication in standard
producer-consumer style

Producer writes to one end (the write-end of the pipe)

Consumer reads from the other end (the read-end of the pipe)

Ordinary pipes are therefore unidirectional

Require parent-child relationship between communicating

processes
Ordinary Pipes
Named Pipes
Named Pipes are more powerful than ordinary pipes

Communication is bidirectional

No parent-child relationship is necessary between the

communicating processes

Several processes can use the named pipe for communication

Provided on both UNIX and Windows systems

 FIFO Example
// C program to implement one side of FIFO
// This side writes first, then reads
#include <stdio.h>
// C program to implement one side of FIFO
#include <string.h>
// This side reads first, then reads
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <sys/types.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <sys/stat.h>
int main()
#include <sys/types.h>
{
#include <unistd.h>
int fd;
int main()
{
// FIFO file path
int fd1;
char * myfifo = "/tmp/myfifo";
// FIFO file path
// Creating the named file(FIFO)
char * myfifo = "/home/arahman/os_week04/myfifo";
// mkfifo(<pathname>, <permission>)
// Creating the named file(FIFO)
mkfifo(myfifo, 0666);
// mkfifo(<pathname>,<permission>)
char arr1[80], arr2[80];
mkfifo(myfifo, 0666);
while (1)
char str1[80], str2[80];
{
while (1)
// Open FIFO for write only
{
fd = open(myfifo, O_WRONLY);
// First open in read only and read
// Take an input arr2ing from user.
fd1 = open(myfifo,O_RDONLY);
// 80 is maximum length
read(fd1, str1, 80);
fgets(arr2, 80, stdin);
// Print the read string and close
// Write the input arr2ing on FIFO
printf("User1: %s\n", str1);
// and close it
close(fd1);
write(fd, arr2, strlen(arr2)+1);
// Now open in write mode and write
close(fd);
// string taken from user.
// Open FIFO for Read only
fd1 = open(myfifo,O_WRONLY);
fd = open(myfifo, O_RDONLY);
fgets(str2, 80, stdin);
// Read from FIFO
write(fd1, str2, strlen(str2)+1);
read(fd, arr1, sizeof(arr1));
close(fd1);
// Print the read message
}
printf("User2: %s\n", arr1);
return 0;
close(fd);
}
}
return 0;
}
FIFO Example